Why Outsourcing Social Media Is a Task for Professionals, Not Professional Interns

Companies can and do
outsource a great many things. That comment is neither a criticism nor an
expression of sorrow; it is, instead, a statement of fact.

Businesses outsource projects like web design
and copywriting, as well as management of real-time traffic and the creation of
intelligible reports about Web analytics.

The quality associated with outsourcing is,
in the end, no different than the caliber (and accountability) of the work
assigned to an in-house employee, meaning: If you have the right professional,
someone who honors the most expansive definition of that word, technology
shrinks or eliminates distance; it broadens (and often improves) the pool of
talent, without regard to the physical limitations of recruiting candidates
within a particular state or city.

Where outsourcing will make or break a brand,
where it has the power to attract friends and followers (or alienate customers
and repel users), rests with the value of social media and content marketing.
The latter, which no two marketers seem willing to accept, is, by my standards,
material that combines substance and style.

It provides relevant information – news
people can use – written with
flair, and published frequently, so a specific audience can learn something
from an expert with a distinctive viewpoint.

Or, as I am wont to remind executives: “If
you have something to say, then say it well. Have a voice, not an echo.”

I write of what I know because, in my role as
Founder ofOcoos, I offer
business owners the chance to outsource website development with tools for
social media managementwithoutcompromising quality or weakening
their respective messages.

If anything, outsourcing may improve – it may
markedly strengthen – the sort of dynamic, interactive, responsive, and
politely opinionated conversation that is the essence ofsocialmedia.

Compare that scenario with the current state
of business communications, in which a sentence fragment and a link to some
promotional page suffices as “writing.”

Look at the way quantity trumps quality,
complemented by the equivalent of manufactured consent: Bogus Facebook friends
and Twitter followers, purchased and/or run by a social media marketing agency
(so-called), register their approval almost instantly; fostering a
self-congratulatory atmosphere that, for all intents and purposes, appears
active but is, in fact, silent.

If this assertion is true, and it is, why do companies
continue to pursue –and pay for – these tactics? The answer is simple: There is
a popular misconception between busyness and business. That is, a majority of
executives mistake the appearance of activity as confirmation of the necessity
of said activity.

That approach can be ruinous for a company
with a brand that is the result of careful planning, assiduous adjustment and
proper positioning.

It only takes one generic post, one
irreverent tweet or one truncated sentence to undo years of brand development
and the courtship of consumers. It only takes, in other words, a novice to
destroy the hard work of a professional.

No amount of contrition can erase this
problem because there is no way to delete, even after deleting an offensive
comment, the very content that someone else will have archived or photographedbeforeyou try to alter your own cyber
history.

These variables place a premium on
outsourcing. Rather, these variables place a premium on the rise of
professionals – social media experts – who can write with fluency and lucidity.

These variables demand quality outsourcing.

That quality is clear, consistent and
effective. It speaks with authority, but never sounds imposing. It is a voice
of confidence on behalf of an audience of colleagues, confederates and
champions of camaraderie.